


At Least We've Got the Machina

by nwhepcat



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Crack-tastic, Gen, Prompt Fic, h/c
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-24
Updated: 2010-01-24
Packaged: 2017-10-06 16:14:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/55508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nwhepcat/pseuds/nwhepcat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean's not sure a delirious Sam can hold out against Lucifer for much longer. Desperate measures are called for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	At Least We've Got the Machina

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Steelneko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Steelneko/gifts).



> Inspired by a prompt at Yuletide, but the fandom I worked in is too big, and another writer fulfilled the prompt (which you should go find), so it's not quite a New Year's Resolution fic.
> 
> Thanks to SunnyD_Lite for the super fast beta service.

Dean Winchester watches his brother's fitful sleep and whispers into the phone. "I don't like it. I think the leg's going septic."

"Does the blizzard show any sign of letting up?"

"Hell, we've got thundersnow, Bobby. I don't know when I can get him to a doctor."

Bobby grunts. "Keep up what you're doing."

"It's not enough!" Pacing to the bathroom of the cabin, Dean closes the door behind him and leans on it. "He's started mumbling in his sleep. If Lucifer starts dreamwalking with him, there's no telling what he might say in his condition."

"'Anything' as in 'yes'."

"Exactly." He runs a hand over his hair. "I don't mind telling you, Bobby, I'm scared shitless. If he says yes to Lucifer, it's goodbye, world." This is nothing Bobby doesn't already know, and Dean's well aware of it. But he's at the stage where pointless repetition of his worst fears has the obsessive appeal of pressing on a bad bruise.

"Deal with the fever, and keep getting the antibiotics in him, even if you have to --"

"That is _not_ gonna be necessary." There are some things he's just not going to think about. Antibiotic enema infusions top the list. "Look, I'd better go."

Before he emerges from the bathroom, Dean fills a water glass and shakes out another antibiotic and a couple of aspirin. He sits one the edge of Sam's bed. "Sammy. C'mon, Sammy, wake up. Just long enough to swallow these down, all right?"

Without waiting for a response, he hauls Sam up and pats at his cheek until his eyes flutter. "C'mon. Wake up. I've got medicine, it'll make you feel better."

Sam rouses enough to manage the pills and a few sips of water before he begins choking.

"Stay with me, Sam. Stay awake." Before the plea's out of Dean's mouth, Sam has sagged against him, out of it. Dean eases him down and puts a hand to his forehead.

"_Dean_," Sam moans, and Dean has a pretty good idea it has nothing to do what's going on in this room, but something that's happening inside his fevered head. "Dean, oh god _no_ \--"

Dean's heard that broken tone before, used it himself as he felt the life pumping out of Sam when Jake stabbed him. "Sammy, I'm here. I'm here. You're dreaming, Sam, I'm right here beside you."

All Sam offers in reply is a choked moan that ends in a sob.

Dean grabs him by the shoulders and shakes him hard. "Lucifer, you fuck! This is cheating! _Sammy._ He's lying to you Sammy, trying to trick you into saying yes. I'm right here."

But he's lost in the fever-dream, and Dean knows if anything will make Sam sell his soul, it's despair over the death of his brother. _I've been there, done that._

In desperation, he grabs up the ice bucket and flings the motel room door open, but he has a snowball's chance of getting through those drifts to the ice machine. _Snowball's chance --_ Scooping the bucket into the knee-high drift at their door, he packs as much snow as he can fit into the plastic tub. He runs back to the bed and scoops out handfuls of snow to pack in Sam's armpits, at the back of his neck and wrists, dumping the rest over his groin. That turns the sobs into a thin scream, at least, but Sam's too far gone to wake up. The sobs come back, wracking and violent, a harsh counterpoint to Dean's frantic babbling reassurances.

A brief dark flicker of a thought occurs to him: Maybe the only way to save the world now is to kill Lucifer's vessel before the fucker has a chance to take it over.

_Kill Sam, or let the world fall into Hell._

Last time he made that choice, he was the one who fell into the Pit. He knows what's at stake.

But Sammy's been his responsibility since he was four years old. He can't go against all those years of training, not even for this. As he puts his snow-chilled fingers on Sam's forehead, it seems Sam's fever's burning even hotter.

"Shit," he mutters. "Now what?"

A gust of wind flings the door back against the wall, and Dean looks around, hoping it's Castiel making one of his Badass Angel Ex Machina appearances. But all he sees is the swirl of snow and the dark hulking presence of the Impala.

"Well, fuck it," he mutters. "At least we've got the machina."

Gathering the ugly motel comforter around Sam, he hoists him and carries him out of the room. It's a hard slog to the passenger side, and he has to deposit Sam in a snowbank to get the door shoveled out before he can get Sam in the car. Pretty brutal treatment, but if this doesn't work a cold or pneumonia isn't going to matter. Settling Sam at last into the shotgun seat, Dean leans over him to start the ignition, cranking up the heat and the stereo before he closes the door and hastily digs out the tailpipe before making his way to the driver's side. This side of the car is sheltered from the wind, so Dean tosses the shovel aside and gets in behind the wheel.

"Feel that bass, Sammy? Feel this?" He revs the engine, the vibrations of its deep rumble a physical sign of where they are. "You're here with me, riding shotgun. We're both alive. Just hang on."

Sam lets out a sound that's half cough, half sob. "It's a lie."

"What? _No._ I'm here, I'm alive. That other shit, that's a lie. I'm right here! C'mon, Sam -- it's ZZ Top!" He sings off-key, at the top of his lungs: _Just let me know/If you wanna go/To that shack out on the range._

Sam's expression is so damn anguished that Dean knows this isn't working, that he believes he's just imagining this whole scene. "Please," Sam mutters. "I'll --"

"_NO!_" Dean screams, grabbing Sam's bad leg, anything to stop him before he agrees to let Lucifer walk in his skin. Sam lets out a shriek and passes out.

Hands shaking, he flips open the glove compartment, sending cassettes cascading onto the floor. _How will this help?_

"I don't know I don't know I don't know," he babbles, still pawing through the tapes. There has to be something in here. Something that will work. "Sammy, hold on, don't give in, just hold on. You can't let that bastard have you, not after everything."

A case catches his eye, a blank cassette case with hand-lettered song titles wrapped around its sides. He flips it open, sees that for once it's the right damn cassette inside. A relic of the prank wars, with LED ZEP LIVE BOOTLEG -- PRIMO SHIT scrawled on it in Sam's handwriting.

"You think _you're_ evil," Dean mutters, ejecting the ZZ Top and ramming this replacement into the deck. "Suck on this, Lucifer!"

A fast skitter of synthesized drums, then: _We're no strangers to love/You know the rules and so do I..._

Dean joins in singing, making those loose-fisted lame-ass arm movements he's seen on YouTube: _A full commitment's what I'm thinkin' of--_

Sam draws in a gasping breath.

Skipping ahead of the music, Dean butchers the chorus: _Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you go, never gonna tell a lie and hurt you._

_That's no misty fantasy, Sammy, that's real, it's here and now._

Sam stirs, a low moan, but the note of despair seems to be fading.

"Sammy, wake up, clear your head. I'm here, I'm okay."

"Dean?" He says weakly.

"Yeah, Sammy. C'mon, stay with me."

"Jesus, I thought--"

"I know Lucifer's been walking in your head, I think. Sounded like you were about to say the three-letter word."

Sam just rests against the door a moment or two, panting. "So you dump snow on my crotch and rickroll me?"

"Desperate measures, dude."

Shifting to ease his leg, Sam hisses a sharp breath. "You know what this means, don't you?"

"I saved the world?"

Sam grunts. "No. It means prank Armageddon."

Relief gusts through Dean. _It's going to be okay, at least for now._ "Oh, bring it on, Snowballs."

"Jerk."

"Bitch."

_Yeah. Suck on this, Lucifer._

**Author's Note:**

> Started as a Yuletide Madness treat for SteelNeko, but I ran out of steam in the frenzy of the holidays, then the prompt was filled anyway. But once the idea was in my head, it had to come out. The prompt: _The universe is headed for certain doom, and only rickrolling can save it._ And lately certain doom makes me think of _Supernatural_, so there you go.


End file.
